Development and validation of model for sand

There is a growing requirement within QinetiQ to develop models for assessments when there is very little experimental data. A theoretical approach to developing equations of state for geological materials has been developed using Quantitative Structure Property Modelling based on the Porter-Gould model approach. This has been applied to well-controlled sand with different moisture contents and particle shapes. The Porter-Gould model describes an elastic response and gives good agreement at high impact pressures with experiment indicating that the response under these conditions is dominated by the molecular response. However at lower pressures the compaction behaviour is dominated by a micro-mechanical response which drives the need for additional theoretical tools and experiments to separate the volumetric and shear compaction behaviour. The constitutive response is fitted to existing triaxial cell data and Quasi-Static (QS) compaction data. This data is then used to construct a model in the hydrocode. The model shows great promise in predicting plate impact, Hopkinson bar, fragment penetration and residual velocity of fragments through a finite thickness of sand.